Neoclassicism!

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Neoclassicism!
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Neoclassicism

• the Neoclassical period covers 1660-1785
• - it contain a number of sub-periods
• - The Restoration (1660-1700)
• - The Augustan Age (the Age of Pope) (1700-1745)
• - The Age of Sensibility (the Age of Johnson)
  (1745-1785)

• Royal Observatory at Greenwich (1675)
• Sir Christopher Wren

literary periods are convenient for the sake of
scholarship they are not hard and fast rules
Some important writers John Dryden Alexander
Pope Joseph Addison Jonathan Swift Samuel
Johnson Edmund Burke
Jonathan Swift 1667-1745
Samuel Johnson 1709-1784
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Neoclassicism
"The Neo-classic Period" of English literature
spans the 140 years or so after the Restoration. 
(1660-1798)
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Neoclassic PeriodThe Restoration and Eighteenth
Century (1660-1798)

• 1660 Charles II restored to throne.
• 1668 The Glorious Revolution.
• 1776 The American colonies united for freedom.
• 1789 The French Revolution begin.

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What is classicism?
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Features of Neoclassicism
Neoclassic authors manifested traditionalism
and distrusted innovation, in respect for
classical writers.
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Ars Poetica
The neoclassic ideal was the craftsman's ideal
literature should be an "art" which must be
perfected by long study and practice. The
neoclassic writer strove for correctness,
observed "decorum", and respected "the rules of
poetry" established by classical works.
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Poeta Poet as a maker
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Neoclassicism pursued "art for humanity's
sake".  Its primary subject matter was human
beings as an integrated part of a society. Poetry
(literature) was held to be an imitation of
human life, which is designed to give both
instruction and pleasure (dulce et utile) to the
people who read it.
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A prime aim of poetry was to give new and
perfect expression to the general nature and
shared values of humanity. Poetry needed to
balance the typical and the familiar with the
qualities of novelty, particularity, and
invention.
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An individual was viewed as a limited being who
ought to undertake accessible goals. Human beings
needed to accept their restricted positions in
the natural order, or a natural hierarchy, which
was called Great Chain of Being at that time.
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Alexander Pope(1688-1744)
True wit is . . . what oft was thought but neer
so well expressed.
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Jonathan Swift(1667-1745)
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Definition

• Neoclassicism is a literary movement of the 17th
  and 18th centuries that stressed the importance
  of using ancient Greek and Roman (the Classical
  period) literature as a guide for creation and
  criticism.
• Hence, there is the paradox of the term neo,
  meaning new and classicism, meaning oldness.

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The Pendulum of Western Literature

• Literature in the Western world can be thought of
  as swinging back and forth between two artistic
  ideals classicism, which stresses following
  tradition and the rules derived thereof, and
  anti-classicism (or romanticism), which stresses
  originality and breaking tradition.
• The Neoclassical period of the 17th and 18th
  centuries was a particularly strong classical
  period. It would, in turn, be followed by a
  particularly strong Romantic period in the latter
  18th and early 19th century.

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Aesthetics of Identity vs. Aesthetics of
Opposition

• This pendulum swing can also be thought in terms
  of the aesthetics of identity versus the
  aesthetics of opposition.
• The aesthetics of identity says that we find
  beauty in the familiar we like art that is like
  what we have seen before. Thus, classicism is an
  aesthetics of identity.
• The aesthetics of opposition says that we find
  beauty in that which is new and different. That
  is the creed of the romantic artist.

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Basic Characteristics of Neoclassicism

• Imitation of the ancients
• Aesthetics of identity
• Rules for all art forms
• Literature as an art/craft
• Importance of reason
• Concern about pride
• Universal nature of humanity
• Perfectability of humanity

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1 -- Reverence and Imitation of the Ancients

• The explanation of that paradox can be found in
  the first important characteristic of
  neoclassicism.
• Neoclassical writers looked to ancient Greek and
  Roman writers for inspiration and guidance.

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Reverence and Imitation of the Ancients

• They believed that writers should strive to
  achieve excellence by imitating those great
  writers of the past, not by trying to be original
  or innovative.
• Thus, art is rediscovery, reinvention, and
  imitation.

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2 -- Aesthetics of Identity

• Aesthetics is the study of beauty in this case,
  beauty in literature.
• There are two conflicting views on aesthetics
  the aesthetics of identity and the aesthetics of
  opposition.
• The aesthetics of identity is when we find beauty
  in those works of art that are familiar to us,
  while the aesthetics of opposition is when we
  find beauty in the new and the different.

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Aesthetics of Identity

• By looking back to the ancient world for
  standards, the neoclassical writer was working
  within the aesthetics of identity.

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3 -- Rules for Art

• Neoclassical writers believed there were rules
  for all forms of art.
• These rules were derived by looking at the texts
  from the ancient world.

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Rules for Art

• For example, in France in 1635, Cardinal
  Richelieu established the Academie Francaise to
  establish rules for the use of the French
  language and to preserve the purity of the
  language.
• The Academy is still a powerful organization in
  France.

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4 -- Literature as Art

• Neoclassical writers tended to view literature as
  something artificial or artificed, something
  created by craft and study.
• Thus, craft and study are more important than
  talent or genius.

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5 -- Importance of Reason

• The most important human faculty was reason.
• Reason was the spark of the divine within human
  beings.
• The path to knowledge and virtue was through the
  exercise of reason.

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Importance of Reason

• For example, one of the important religious
  movements of the Neoclassical age was the Deist
  movement.
• Deism is a completely rational form of
  Christianity.

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Deism

• Traced from Lord Herberts De Veritate in 1624,
  Deists believed
• Nature is the inherent order of the universe (The
  Great Chain of Being).
• God is the clockmaker who built this perfect
  universe to work according to certain immutable
  laws.
• God does not perform miracles and did not tinker
  with the watch after its creation.
• The Bible is a great moral authority, but all
  irrational aspects within it (such as miracles
  and the divinity of Christ) are superstitions.
• Reason guides men to virtue

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6 -- Concern About Pride

• The greatest bane to reason and the greatest
  danger to humanity is pride.
• All sins, in some fashion or another, are sins of
  pride.

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7 -- Universality

• People are the same, no matter what country or
  age in which they live.

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8 -- Perfectabilty

• Perfection (artistic, personal, social) is
  possible through the proper use of reason.

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Neoclassicism the period is bounded by the
Restoration of Charles II as the British
monarch and (roughly) the outbreak of the French
Revolution in 1789 (the beginning of the Romantic
Period)some features of the period (at least
its early years) includestrong interest in
tradition (thus the neo, meaning new) -
distrust of radical innovationgreat respect for
classical writers (those of Ancient Greece and
Rome) gt the idea of enduring literary
modelsliterature was one of the arts as an
art it required the practice and study of a set
of skills and the involvement of the artist in
the forms and styles of the classical era
(contrast this to the Romantic ideal of the lone
poet, the natural, solitary genius....)the
Roman poet Horace produced his Ars Poetica (first
century B.C.) - consisting of nearly 30 guiding
maxims for aspiring poets
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text (Ars Poetica) within text (commentary by
Cristoforo Landino, Florence, 1482) within text
(annotations by Tasso)
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HOMER is universally allow'd to have had the
greatest Invention of any Writer
whatever. Alexander Pope (1688-1744), Preface
to his Translation of Homer's Iliad (1715)
As in the most regular Gardens, however Art may
carry the greatest Appearance, there is not a
Plant or Flower but is the Gift of Nature. The
first can only reduce the Beauties of the latter
into a more obvious Figure, which the common Eye
may better take in, and is therefore more
entertain'd with. ... Our Author's Work is a
wild Paradise , where if we cannot see all the
Beauties so distinctly as in an order'd Garden,
it is only because the Number of them is
infinitely greater.
Pope
a formal English garden
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• Neoclassicism continuedoutside of natural
  geniuses like Shakespeare and Homer, artists
  strove for correctness, or decorum the rules
  of poetry were largely governed by genre like
  epic, tragedy, comedy, pastoral derived, or
  learned, from Classical authors humanity was
  taken to be the proper subject for poetry
  (particularly humans in their social
  arrangements, as opposed to the individual
  contemplating his or her own psyche or
  relationship with natural world)poetry was held
  to be an imitation of reality/nature/humanity
  a mirror held up to nature though it was
  artifice that ordered and organized the materials
  that nature provided so as to reveal its genius
  and its Beauty

M.H. Abrams discussed the movement from the
neoclassical conception of art and the artist to
the Romantic conception of art and the artist
through the metaphors of the mirror
(neoclassical) and the lamp (Romantic)
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Neoclassicism continued
- art should both instruct and delight - a
classical ideal picked up by many authors,
including Sir Philip Sidney (in his A Defence of
Poesie) and John Dryden (in his Essay of
Dramatic Poesie) - neoclassical humanism
addressed itself to what mankind had as
universally in common (a problematic ideal on
many levels, including its sexism and
eurocentrism) - the ideal of balance, of
accessible goals (the contrary to prideful
hubris), and of natural hierarchy as symbolized
by The Great Chain of Being - Pope would write
that The bliss of man....is not to think or act
beyond mankind.
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The Great Chain of Being the divine, universal
hierarchy humans are represented by the male
only.   From Didacus Valades, Rhetorica
Christiana (1579).  
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neoclassicism was the art that hides art (a
phrase borrowed from Horace)
Vegas as neoclassical....?
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Visual Arts Examples
Romantic Art
Neoclassical Art Death of Marat
How are these two pieces of art different? What
words best describe these paintings?
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• Romantic

• Neoclassical

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Neoclassical Architecture
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Versailles, Orangerie
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• French
• garden

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Jacques-Louis David Oath of the Horatii
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David The Sabine Women
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Andrea Palladio La Rotonda, Villa Capra
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La rotonda
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• Palladian
• window

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Inigo Jones Queens House (1635)
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Inigo Jones Wilton House (1640s)
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Lord Burlington Chiswick House (1729)
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Radcliffe Camera, Oxford (James Gibbs, 1749)
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• Jean-Baptiste Pigalle
• Voltaire (1770-6)

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• Aubrey Beardsley
• Belindas Toilette (1890s)

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• The Battle of
• the Beaux and
• the Belles

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• The Cave of Spleen

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• Henri Fuseli
• The Cave of Spleen

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• The Rape of the Lock

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• Sir Joshua Reynolds
• Jane, Countess of Harrington

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• Thomas
• Gainsborough
• Mr and Mrs William Hallett

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William Hogarth Marriage a la Mode
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William Hogarth The Rakes Progress 8
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William Hogarth The Beggars Opera
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• William Hogarth
• Gin Lane

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Illustration to Tom Jones (Thwackum and Square)
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Main Tenets of Neoclassicism

• 1. These authors exhibited a strong
  traditionalism, which was often joined to a
  distrust of radical innovation and was evidenced
  above all in their great respect for classical
  writersi.e., writers of ancient Greece and Rome.

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• 2. Literature was conceived to be primarily an
  art that is, a set of skills which, though it
  requires innate talents, must by perfected by
  long study and practice and consists in the
  deliberate adaptation of known and tested means
  to be achieved of foreseen ends upon readers.

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• 3. Human beings were regarded as the primary
  subject matter of literature. Poetry was held to
  be an imitation of human life a mirror held up
  to nature. Poetry is thus designed to yield both
  instruction and aesthetic pleasure for readers.
  Not art for arts sake, but art for humanitys
  sake.

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• 4. Both in subject matter and the appeal of art,
  emphasis was placed on what human beings possess
  in commonrepresentative characteristics and
  widely shared experiences, thoughts, feelings,
  and tastes.
• Pope what oft was thought but neer so well
  expressed

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• 5. The belief that human beings were limited
  agents who ought to set themselves only
  accessible goals.
• Pride goeth before the fall
• The golden mean/avoidance of extremes
• The Great Chain of Being
• The heroic couplet/traditional and highly
  restrictive patterns

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The Development of Modern English Novels

• The mid-century witnessed the rise and
  development of a new literary form modern
  English novel.
• Contrary to the traditional romance of
  aristocrats, modern English novels give a
  realistic presentation of life of the common
  English people. This is the most significant
  phenomenon in the history of the development of
  English literature in the 18th century. It is a
  natural product of the Industrial Revolution and
  a symbol of the growing importance and strength
  of the English middle class. Among the pioneers
  of modernist novels were Daniel Defoe, Samuel
  Richardson, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne,
  Tobias George Smollett and Oliver Goldsmith.